Xiaomi Redmi 4A Review

Hey guys what’s up and welcome. this is the Xiaomi Redmi 4a, the cheapest Redmi phone ever launched starting at $70.Phones that cost $70 and below are usuallypretty crappy but Xiaomi is revolutionizing the ultra budget segment with some reallygood specs for a $70 phone, a snapdragon 425, 2GB of RAM and a 13MP camera, its almost aRedmi 3 Prime for $50 less.But if you sell a phone at $70, you have tocut corners somewhere right, so lets see where they cut those corners.Hey guys what’s up and welcome to zi reviewstech, i’m zi, and I have in my hand the pink Xiaomi Redmi 4A that MSRPs at $70, whichusually means crappy build, the dreaded MTK6580 processor IMO worst part, and zero RAM closesecond, but no, we have a very respectable snapdragon 425 processor, 2GB of RAM and a13MP camera.This phone does not resemble a budget deviceat all, well that’s actually not true as you’ll find out in the build quality sectioncoming up next.Xiaomi had to cut corners somewhere right,so lets find out whether Xiaomi made the right cuts or the wrong ones.So yes Xiaomi cut the metal bulid from the4A, but they replaced it with pretty high quality plastic that looks like metal, butyou remember in the intro where i said the Redmi 4A looks like a budget device? From the back no it looks like metal but Yeahfrom the front, it totally does mainly because the bezels around the screen are so big for2016 at least, then when you turn the phone on you see additional black bezel, its smallbut its there Other than that the build quality is durable,the 4A is actually thinner than the Redmi 4 Prime and lighter as well.Apart from all those bezels, no complaintsabout the build here.The screen itself is 720p, and its more thanenough for a $70 device and its not like its a bad looking screen, its actually OK.The screen is a bit blue compared to the Redmi4 Prime but its nothing too great.Overall the screen still does its job well.The max brightness goes up to around 400nitswhich is not super bright but decent for a cheap phone like this.There’s no protective glass so buy a screenprotector.Speakers here are pretty much the exact samequality and loudness as the Redmi 4 Prime, meaning quality isn’t spectacular but itsloud.Definitely good enough for normal use, here’ssome sample audio.I wasn’t sure what to expect with batterylife, would the Snapdragon 425 be as efficient as the 625 in the Redmi 4 Prime? Because if it was then the 3000mAh batterycould match up to Redmi 3s with great battery life but not stupidly good.So the result is somewhere in the middle,it’s definitely not as efficient as the 625 but its good enough to give me 4-5 hoursof screen on time over a 16 hour day.This was mostly web browsing, reddit, andsome Youtube as well.There’s a high possibility that the Redmi4A has best in class battery life for a phone below $70 at the moment, so while batterylife is a tiny bit below what I need, its still more than enough for most people.There is also quickcharge 2.0 as well.We have the usual MIUI8 on Android 6.0 Marshmallowand the usual functions as well, no fingerprint sensor which i actually kinda miss now.So for normal use this phone is great, chrome,texting, whatsapp, or reddit no problems there, so when you’re using heavy apps its actuallyjust as fast, it just takes longer to launch.Multitasking is tough with just 2GB of RAMand MIUI takes up quite a bit as well, gamingwise the phone can handle a lot of games from theapp store but some of the more intense games stutter too much even on low, but it can stillhandle some of the most demanding games easily too.It gets a decent Antutu score as well.Connectivity is pretty standard, receptionis fine, I get 3G and 4G easily, GPS, WiFi and Bluetooth all work well, there is alsoa microsd card slot as well.In bright lighting the difference in qualitybetween the Redmi 4 Prime and the 4A is virtually zero, meaning it takes pretty decent pictures,a bit more yellow but nothing that can’t be fixed in 2 seconds, in low light though ittakes slightly grainer pictures than the Prime, that’s not a good thing because the Redmi4 prime already didn’t take good low light photos.The front camera is virtually the same, andvideo is slightly less detailed compared to the Prime and doesn’t have OIS or EIS.So basically we have a slightly worse camerain the 4A than the Redmi 4 Prime.So a budget phone is all about compromise.Even more so with an ultra budget phone, andthe Redmi 4A is priced in the ultra budget range.Sure, Xiaomi made compromises but they madethe right compromises in all the right spots and didn’t take any one compromise too far.This is an extremely well rounded smartphone,no it’s not going to blow you away in any one area except for price but its also notgoing to massively disappoint you either, great device, not perfect, i like to use thephrase optimally compromised, i wonder if that will catch on.Thanks so much for watching oh i almost forgotthe MSRP is $70 but if you live outside China the price is higher than that, hovering between$90-110, at $90 its still a great deal but at $110 not so much, so either wait for asale or just straight up buy the Redmi 4 Prime, be sure to subscribe like check out the otherRedmi review to my right and i’ll see you gus in the next one.SHARE

Aly Chiman

Aly Chiman is a Blogger & Reporter at AlyChiTech.com which covers a wide variety of topics from local news from digital world fashion and beauty . AlyChiTech covers the top notch content from the around the world covering a wide variety of topics. Aly is currently studying BS Mass Communication at University.